Al-Qaṭīf

Qatif is a green oasis of palm groves and springs on the western shore of the Gulf, one of the oldest settlements in eastern Arabia and home to a Shia Arab population. For centuries it was the chief trading port of the Bahrain province, ahead of 'Uqair, and the warm waters off its coast gave fish and pearl oysters. The geographer Abulfeda called it a pleasant town on the Arab shore of the sea, and Ibn Battuta, who came in 1331, found a large, prosperous city of Arab tribes. The Uyunids ruled the region until 1253, later from Qatif itself, and the Usfurids then made Qatif their capital; power passed to the Jabrids in 1440.

The Portuguese took Hormuz in 1515 and sacked Qatif in 1520, killing the Jabrid ruler Muqrin ibn Zamil. In 1524 Basra extended its power here, the Ottomans took the oasis in 1549–50, and the Portuguese held Qatif again from 1551, allied with the pasha of Basra. Later the Banu Khalid ruled the oasis until the first Saudi state absorbed it around 1790. On Tarout Island off the coast, a castle from the Uyunid age on the hill of Tall Tawt was later used by the Portuguese for defence.